West Elm Launches Integrated Pinterest Campaign

Home goods store West Elm has taken the plunge into Pinterest marketing. The Pottery Barn-owned company launched its first Pinterest campaign January 22nd. The campaign centers around a Pin to Win sweepstakes and is integrated across multiple media channels, including Facebook, Google+, Instagram, and West Elm’s Blog “Front & Main.”

The contest centers around a newly added color in West Elm’s collection- the color indigo. The company is pushing the color for the season, and is offering many products in indigo, including couches, rugs, ottomans, blankets, and artwork. To increase sales of the season’s color, West Elm is placing a heavy marketing emphasis on its indigo products. Included in its marketing mix is Pinterest. The integration makes perfect sense. The brand has a natural setting within Pinterest due to its inspirational home product designs. To make matters even more appropriate, the company has over 100 thousands followers on Pinterest, roughly just as many as Facebook.

To enter the contest, users must visit the contest page found on the West Elm blog, its website, and Facebook. From there, they fill out a form with their contact information. They then must head over to Pinterest and follow all of West Elm’s Pinterest boards (if they aren’t already of course!). Once they’re done, they can visit West Elm’s Indigo Color Crush Sweepstakes Pinterest board. Users must select at least five of the indigo products pinned and repin the pins on to their own Pinterest boards.

The winners of the Pinterest contest will be selected at random. The grand prize is a $1,000 West Elm gift card. Ten additional entrants will receive $100 West Elm gift cards.

The Pinterest contest is supported by multiple pieces of media:

Facebook- Facebook is the primary media channel driving to the contest. West Elm’s Facebook page has a special section under its cover photo that links to the Indigo Color Crush entry form. Posts about the contest are also made on their timeline, displayed in-between photographs of indigo-inspired homes.

The West Elm blog (“Between Fifth and Main”) also has posts about the contest, inviting users to join for a chance to win. The posts on the blog are also featured on West Elm’s homepage.

The West Elm Indigo Crush Color sweepstakes is a prime example of a Pinterest contest done right, for several reasons:

West Elm’s reach on Pinterest is substantial. For them to have almost as many followers on Pinterest as compared to Facebook is actually very astounding, and is something many traditional brands have not yet been able to do. Thus, West Elm’s consumers find them appealing on Pinterest, and it’s likely they’ve generated many new customers this way.

The integrated marketing ties everything together. By taking advantage of its reach on Facebook and its blog, West Elm increases its Pinterest followers, repins, and customers.

Some of the pins that are part of the contest have over 1,000 repins. As someone repins an indigo product, their followers will see the indigo product in their Pinterest home pages. If they find it interesting, they’ll repin it. The process repeats itself even after the contest ends. The result is increased awareness of the indigo products and of West Elm itself.

While West Elm does a great job with its new Pinterest campaign, I challenge a brand to come up with an interesting marketing campaign that doesn’t involve contests (though I do like the prizes! If only I would win one…).

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Bryan Nagy

Bryan Nagy

Bryan Nagy is a digital media and marketing communications professional with a passion for the online world, including social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, mobile advertising, video advertising, and display advertising.